Imaginary Pan

Labels for this post:
e.g. scooters, vacation, fall

I know- I did that one already- the bit with copying the little labels for this post label. And I used it as an excuse to start BS'ing about motorcycles, and ended up writing about a hapless road trip I took back in 1973. Well- it is Fall. I could use a vacation, and an oddly wistful sort of dream has taken hold of my imagination. I say "oddly wistful", because I've been dreaming about motorcycles, and "wistful" is generally better suited to dreams of lost loves, lost youth, and all things nostalgically lost in nostalgia.

Still, I keep dreaming about a Panhead. I want a 1952 Harley, and I want to build. (With the emphasis on build.) a '70's "Frisco style" chopper, along the lines of the Captain America bike that Peter Fonda rode in Easy Rider. I'd like to get an old FL, and disassemble the thing down to nuts and bolts, and resurrect it in the image of all those badass machines that the outlaw clubs rode when they terrorized hippies back in the day...

There's always a lot of free brain time at work, and The Project has become The New Favorite Toy for my brain. I muse on everything from the danger inherent in riding a chopped out bike with the old style foot clutch and suicide gearshift, to the ethical question raised by taking a vintage machine and customizing, rather than restoring it. I think on peanut tanks, sissy bars, how far to extend the wide glide... I can play with this stuff in my head for hours.

But that's all it is. Head play. It's a mental weed of sorts that feeds on traces of hope. The hope, in this case, would be finding my way to a financial situation that would allow me to indulge in the project. So I've been playing George to my own Lennie, and fertilizing this mental weed with bullshit. And it's a cover, too. As long as I'm filling my brain with this kind of stuff, I'm not letting my brain fill up with big picture stuff. And you know how it goes- the bigger the picture, the scarier the stuff. So I'm keeping stride with a day's work, and cursing this primitive goddamn pile of gears and iron for not starting after the zillionth kick, and then I remember to turn on the gas, and it fires right up, and everyone laughs, but right now I have to lock the upper field gate, change a couple of lights, and get the trash cans out in time for the first lunch...

I like doing this. Working the day shift is fun, and Stephen King Elementary is a particularly sweet routine. And I've been here for a couple of weeks already on what's looking like an open ended assignment. Short version- the regular day man had planned on retiring after this school year. Unfortunately, he had some heart trouble. He'll be OK, but it's doubtful if he'll be able to return to work. In the mean time, I'm filling in until further notice.

That's the hard part. Filling in. I've been filling in here and there for three years, now. I do a damn good job, too. Doesn't matter. Filling in is as far as I'm going to get in this outfit. I get all kinds of happy talk about what a good job I do, but they hired out the last two openings to guys cold off the street. Nice enough guys, but younger, and dumber to boot. And I've already followed up their work. They're doing an average job. Nothing special. So I know I could work this day position for months, have the plant buffed up like an antique car, and everybody happy with the service. But when the regular guy does retire, they'll tell me, "Thanks for all the hard work", and hire someone else for the job.

It's a U.T.O.L., a Universal Task Of Life. This one is called: Face it, dude, they're not hiring guys your age. They're hiring young men with families to raise, not old men trying for one last career before the boneyard. Hell, I'm older than the guy I'm filling in for. But I don't face it. I do the same thing I've done all along: bust my ass trying to do an exceptional job, and fail at suppressing the hope that I could still get a full-time gig out of this.

And- you know- it's not really about the Panhead. It's what full time work would mean- health insurance, life insurance, - shit we just can't get or afford. And less for me than for my wife. If she got... I'll just leave it there; I don't need to get all melodramatic. You know. So I think about building the chopper, and let the daydream grow like a weed on the false hope that I'm going to get anywhere on this job.

JWM

Life In The Best Of All Possible Worlds

This post is a boast. A throwdown to every dude and dudette in the Coonosphere. This is a rocket at Rick, and Robin. A bomb at Ben, and Bob. A jolt to Julie and Joan. Know ye now, that the women are on notice, and the men are well, and truly pwn3d. I hereby stake an unequivocal claim on the loftiest and most rarefied reaches of high ground. And I mean like Himalayaville, Daddy-O.
I.
Rule.

What, you might ask, has catapulted your usually humble, and somewhat self effacing host to such ecstatic transports (not to mention annoying alliterations)? A winning ticket on the pick six? A sure shot at fame and fortune? An NEA grant for my cat litter sculpture of teh preznit?

Well, actually it's my wife who gets the kudos. Take heed here, Julie and Joan. Eat yer' hearts out guys. Here it comes.

I've been working this week. Friday morning started as it always does: Mary gets up in the dark to make coffee and oatmeal. I follow a few minutes later, pour a cup, and take half an hour to achieve consciousness while sitting on the couch with the cat. Mary stirs me when breakfast is ready, feeds me, and gets me out the door. It's a sweet enough way to start the day. But.
This Friday I fumbled my way to the table; she set the bowl of cereal at my place, and joined me with her own a moment later. She sat down, turned to me and said, "You've been working hard this week. How about tonight I take you for dinner, and then we can see this new movie I was reading about- Zombieland. How does that sound?"

Keep in mind that it was early, and my blood caffeine level was barely high enough to simulate awareness.
Zombieland?
My wife had just offered to take me to a zombie movie.
It would be well to note here that my wife is sixty one years old.

"That sounds good," I said.

Truly momentous events overwhelm our ability to comprehend them. Their impact is felt not like a blow, but rather more like a drug that requires some time to take effect. It took a while before I began to really realize what had happened at the breakfast table. And this realization was starting to remind me of the time back in the 60's when I tossed down half a dozen diet pills just to see what would happen. Sweet euphoria swirled around the wistful sadness that comes from viewing the Human Condition from afar.

My wife offered to take me to a zombie movie. I knew that just as I was reveling in the anticipation of burgers and fries, followed by a couple hours of guns, guts, shit blowin' up, and zombies gettin' blasted every which way from hell, (not to mention babes and cars!) that there were legions of men out there who were staring down the barrels of vegetarian dinners and chick flicks in the vain hope of getting...
Ah, well.
So, guys. I know you all have lovely women in your lives.
But eat your hearts out anyway.
And ladies take note. I have handed you the key to all sorts of renewal in your marriages.

And Zombieland?
Hands down, the all time greatest movie of all time.

JWM

Official End of Summer Post

Booger the Cat is Not Amused. (click for more grump)

This is one of those times when the keyboard is a teaspoon, and the blank post window is an empty pool.
Fill 'er up.
Well...
Where do I start?
First, I guess I'll have to apologize for sloppy blogmanship, bad form, and poor etiquette by just walking off, and leaving the blog unattended. No excuses.
Anyway.
I started writing about work some time ago. You see- the idea was to take a look at what work meant to me, to describe a numinous event, and to consider the change that that vision caused in me and my relation to work. It was all going to culminate with a decision I made last spring, and the consequences of having made it.

That was the plan anyway. And the narrative was going to be interspersed with all sorts of fascinating and funny anecdotal slices of life on the summer crew, complete with all the drama one generally comes to expect when the topic at hand drifts around to the cleaning of schools.

None of that shit happened. And, truth to tell, I really don't much feel like drawing out the metaphysical aspects of manual labor, and crafting them into an amusing story, a parable, or a pious admonition to keep your shoulder to the grindstone for the glory of God, or some such thing.

So, for those of you who have given me you time and attention, here's how the story wound up.
I got out of the cardiac event well, but totally broke. I got a spot substituting for the custodial/maintenance/grounds crew at the local school district. That was January of '07. For the last almost three years I have worked hard, and well, and gladly. I made a reputation. I made some friends. This last spring, two full-time jobs became available. After giving it much thought I decided to put in for one of the jobs. One of them is a tough grind of a job, but at 57, I figured I could probably make ten years- well, maybe make ten. It doesn't matter. They did not hire me for either position.
So. There's the wound. I'll spare you all the salt that got rubbed into it.

"It's not what I want, but what God wants for me. Not what I would do, but what God would have me do. Not my will, but that God's be done
That I humbly pray..."

It was no surprise. All summer long I stressed on it- shook the crap out of that inner-magic-8-ball, but the only answers that came up were the various permutations of "Not Yes". Now I'm just glad it's over.

Watch me dodge the part where I say, "Well, here's the lesson in all this..."

A final note:
Rick, I was just over at "Listening Now". I am honored. Durn near speechless. (that's why I typed this out). Thank you very much.
And to Julie, Thanks for the robot link! There's no such thing as a bad day when you have a warrior robot.
Helen (theo) Thanks for the thought, and the link. I checked the site out briefly, read through the introductory stuff. He sounds interesting.

JWM

Sometimes You See Stuff

As I said last week, I believe that hearing The Voice, or experiencing a sudden flash of insight or intuition is a fairly common experience. Most everyone can tell the story of a hunch, a feeling, an impulse that led to some great opportunity or other. An odd thing about the experience is that you can only see it in retrospect. And if you try to anticipate the encounter- catch a glimpse of the wheels of fate in action, it becomes invisible.

So when I got out of the hospital, and wrote the narrative of my adventure in the cardiac ward I made a point of noting that I had not experienced any sort of luminous moment, no angelic visitors, no sudden spiritual awakening, or anything like that. It was sort of disappointing.

It just took time to digest the experience. Throughout the whole episode, from the moment I collapsed in the emergency room to the time they released me, a little over forty eight hours later, I had an odd, and almost annoying sort of tic running like a soundtrack through my thoughts: "I wonder who made that machine? Who drew the plans for this room? Someone sat at a drafting table, or a CAD screen, and created the layout for those circuit boards. Someone planned out the wiring and installed those electrical fixtures. Someone laid the tile, hauled the concrete, broke the earth to lay the foundation of this place. This hospital where these people are saving my life. The tens of thousands of businesses that create the tools that enable them to do so..." and on, and on. If I saw a picture on the wall I was reminded that someone painted it; someone made the frame...
And the vision expanded until I saw that the entire miracle that is Western Civilization is the compounded effort of countless ordinary people getting up and going to ordinary jobs. It is the will of God that life should flourish. Holy is the work done toward that end. And who can deny that life flourishes in this place? For all its microcosmic faults, the overwhelming balance is abundant Good. We here are so richly blessed.

Now as I look back on it I have to laugh at myself a little. I had The Voice shouting in my ear while I was busy listening for the voice. I was so busy watching for angels that I didn't see the vision. At least not until some days later. Not until the shock of the whole event had begun to wear off. The immediate details of the tests, the procedures, the pain, all faded pretty quickly. But the memory of that odd mental chatter, and the vision it pointed to, remained clear.

JWM

A Decision on the Hill.

This has become another odd exercise, writing these musings on work. Almost everything I've written down in the last few posts has been biographical stuff I have covered before in one context or another. And much of the stuff yet to come will have been covered before as well. But there is a point to all this, beyond my vain rehashing of stuff that's already well and vainly hashed. If I go slowly enough I may just figure out what that point is before I finish.
Anyway.

Writing is work. So is drawing, painting, sculpture, music. Blogging too, come to think of it. Exercise is certainly work, and all the really fun things in life: games, sports, hobbies, require huge investments of effort. So not only is work, work; play is work too. Everyone would love to have play for a job, but, of course, once play becomes a job it is no longer play. Just like slack time. Unless slack is framed by a routine of productive work, it is meaningless.

By the summer of '06, the routine, productive, or not, was an eight mile loop that I'd walk every day through the steep narrow roads in the nearby hills. The route took me past the elementary school by my house, and one afternoon I paused there and just looked at the plant. It was built over fifty years ago. The low slung modern buildings are settled under the shade of huge ash trees. It looks as much like a park, as it does a school. I thought back, not on the teaching career, but to the days when I worked the night shift. What a mellow routine it had been. (Mellow was a highly prized commodity in the seventies) I thought about working at this, or a similar small facility, taking care of the place. It wouldn't be a bad gig at all, I thought. And I could see doing that again...

So I started thinking of just saying screw it with this 'retirement' business, and going back to work. But as I understood it, if I went back to work I'd risk losing the retirement income. That was a tough call. I wrestled with the decision all that summer. I was trudging up the steepest hill on the eight mile loop, sweating hard, and pushing the pace, and my head was swimming with 'what do you really want to do?', when the answer just burst out of me, and I said to myself something like, "I don't care, dammit. I want to go back to work."

And just at that moment- right on cue.

pain.

JWM